**When you click on one of the resources below and are linked to the databases page on the Hesburgh Library website, scroll down to the appropriate resource and click on its title. These are subscription-based resources that require you to use the library proxy to access. You will need to enter your NetID and password if you are off-campus.
Newspapers
Burney Collection of Early English Newspapers (print and digital)
Collection of approximately 1270 17th- and 18th-century newspapers and news pamphlets from the United Kingdom. Hesburgh Library holds the microfilm for this collection and also provides electronic access.
Nineteenth Century British Library Newspapers
Two million pages of articles selected from regional and national newspapers, newspapers from country or university towns, the Midlands, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Includes the 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection and 19th Century Newspapers. Read more
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
This database contains English-language newspapers primarily from the United States but has The Globe and Mail (1844-2009), The Guardian (1821-2003) and The Observer (1791-2003), Irish Times (1859-2011) and Weekly Irish Times (1876-1958), and The Scotsman (1817-1950).
Electronic Databases/Primary Sources
Act of Union Digital Archive
Contains manuscripts, pamphlets, newspapers, and parliamentary papers contemporary with the 1800 Act of Union between Britain and Ireland
British Online Archives
Extensive collection of primary sources that focuses on politics and history with a strength in the territories Britain colonized (America, India, Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand, Australia, and Melanesia). Introductory guides overview the collections and some provide bibliographies for the topic. Read more
British History Online
Primary sources include the following types of sources: legal and judicial sources; parliamentary and political sources; taxation records; records of urban government; ecclesiastical sources; maritime and port records; chronicles, survey, and diaries; personal and biographical sources; records of professional groups. The site also has secondary sources, guides and calendars, gazetteers and dictionaries, and maps.
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers
Collection of more than 200,000 sessional papers from the House of Commons dating from 1715 to present and supplementary material dating back to 1688. Read more
Nineteenth Century British Pamphlets (JSTOR)
To access, select “19th Century British Pamphlets” from Hesburgh’s list of databases. This database contains the following collections of pamphlets; dates of coverage are in parentheses: British Selected Pamphlets (1800-1899); Cowen Tracts (1603-1898); Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection (1800-1900); Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection (1545-1900); Hume Tracts (1769-1890); Knowsley Pamphlets Collection (1792-1868); LSE Selected Pamphlets (1800-1899); Manchester Selected Pamphlets (1799-1900); Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection (1761-1900).
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Collection of newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, statistics, and more sourced from around the world covering the nineteenth century. Although this collection includes areas outside of Britain and Ireland, there are two modules specific to Britain: “British Politics and Society” and “British Theatre, Music, and Literature: High and Popular Culture.”
Past Masters: English Letters
Includes the definitive editions of published correspondence, diaries, memoirs, and notebooks from major English writers including Thomas à Becket, Bacon, Hobbes. Boyle, Locke, Wordsworth, Coleridge. Austen, Eliot, Hardy, Yeats, and others.
Popular Culture in Britain and America
Collection of pamphlets, letters, government files, eye witness accounts, underground magazines, visual and video materials, ephemera, and memorabilia that documents student protests, civil rights, consumerism, and the Vietnam War in the U.S. and U.K. from 1950 to 1975. Supplemented with overview essays, chronologies, a dictionary, and external links to other resources.
State Papers Online: The Government of Britain, 1509-1714 and The 18th Century, 1714-1782 (18th Century just released – July 2013)
The Government of Britain contains full text for more than 3 million pages of British government documents (1509-1714), 200,000 searchable pages of calendars and catalogues, and an image gallery. Supplemented with introductory essays, glossaries, chronologies, conversion charts for money, weights and measures, and other reference tools as well as external links to related resources. The 18th Century collection contains papers on politics and society that document the administration of England, trade, shipping, military affairs, social and religious life, crime, rebellion, and dissent.
Audio/Visual
British Library Archival Sound Recordings
Selections of unique sound recordings from around the world that includes oral histories, world and traditional music, the arts, literature performances, sound maps, the environment.
Bibliographic
Archival
ArchiveFinder
Directory that describes more than 220,000 collections of primary-source materials located in repositories in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.
ArchivesHub
Locate unique sources held at over 220 institutions in the United Kingdom.
National Register of Archives
A comprehensive catalogue compiled from English and Scottish Archives that contains information about the nature and location of manuscripts relating to British History. This is the best resource to begin with for archival resources related to British History.
General Reference
The National Archives
The catalogue contains descriptions for over 20 million records created by the central governments of England and Wales. Approximately 5% of these can be downloaded. These include some of the most popular records, among which are wills (1384-1858), Cabinet papers (1915-1982), British Army medal index cards (1914-1920), and Irish maps (c.1558-c.1610). Other records are available in print form only, but most can be ordered and mailed for a fee.
Legal
Guide to Legal Databases: England and the United Kingdom
List of databases of legal resources for England and the United Kingdom. Some are free; others require subscritpions.
Proceedings of the Old Bailey
Contains 197,745 criminal trials held at London’s central criminal court, the Old Bailey, between 1674 and 1913.
